New
Zealand has been hit by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake off North Island,
USGS reports, just hours after Japan suffered a 7.4 magnitude jolt
and a series of aftershocks off the Fukushima coast which unleashed
tsunami waves.

Tuesday’s
quake comes amid a tsunami scare in Japan and just over a week after
a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck South Island on November
14, also triggering a tsunami and a series of aftershocks which left
at least two people dead.

5.4
magnitude earthquake

rattles southern Hawke's Bay

The
quake hit 70km south-east of Porangahau, at a depth of 30km, at
1.19pm on Tuesday.

Roseanne
Steele from the Porangahau Beach Road Holiday park said there had
been several earthquakes throughout the day. The latest one was the
strongest.

"It
was a big sway, a big movement. There was a wave in the pool. My
tropical fish tank upstairs was moving," she said.

"The
place is continually moving out here. It's not nice, not nice at
all."

Geonet
have reported 12 shakes off the coast of Porangahua in the past
24-hours.

GNS
Science duty seismologist Dr John Ristau said the Porangahau
earthquakes were right at the southern end of where a slow slip event
was taking place.

"This
is likely related to that," he said. "This looks like a
particularly big one."

But
he acknowledged the 5.4 magnitude earthquake was a little bit further
offshore than the others, so it was difficult to say for certain
whether it was really associated with the slow slip event.

The
others in the area in the past few days were smaller or
moderate-sized.

The
slow slip event was "kind of" going from East Cape along
the east coast, ending around the area where the quakes were
happening.

There
had been similar quakes in the past, where a slow slip event had
triggered seismic activity in the area.

Slow
slip events happened on the boundary of two tectonic plates. In this
case, off the east coast of the North Island, the Pacific Plate was
pushing beneath the Australian Plate, which the North Island was
sitting on.

The
plates were locked and not moving from the surface and going down to
a few 10s of km.

"But
further down it's slowly creeping where the slow slip event is
happening," Ristau said.

Slow
slip events increased stress in the shallower areas where the plates
were locked.

Meanwhile
the government is lashing back at suggestions from GeoNet which is
only manned during daytime during the week that it needs better
technologyand more funding. All this despite the Christchurch
arthquake and recent activity.

They
don't mind spending BILLIONS on defence "needs" and are
getting ready bribe the electorate with tax cuts.

If
we get another term of this government everything will have been
destroyed irrevocably.